Investigating the Feasibility of Integrating Pavement Friction and Texture Depth Data in Modeling for INDOT PMS

Under INDOT’s current friction testing program, the friction is measured annually on interstates but only once every three years on non-interstate roadways. The state’s Pavement Management System, however, would require current data if friction were to be included in the PMS. During routine pavement condition monitoring for the PMS, texture data is collected annually. This study explored the feasibility of using this pavement texture data to estimate the friction during those years when friction is not measured directly. After multi0ple approaches and a wide variety of ways of examining the currently available data and texture measuring technologies, it was determined that it is not currently feasible to use the texture data as a surrogate for friction testing. This is likely because the lasers used at this time are not capable of capturing the small-scale pavement microtexture. This situation may change, however, with advances in laser or photo interpretation technologies and improved access to materials data throughout the INDOT pavement network

Spin-nematic order in the frustrated pyrochlore-lattice quantum rotor model

As an example of ordering due to quantum fluctuations, we examine the nearest-neighbor antiferromagnetic quantum O(n) rotor model on the pyrochlore lattice. Classically, this system remains disordered even at zero temperature; we find that adding quantum fluctuations induces an ordered phase that survives to positive temperature, and we determine how its phase diagram scales with the coupling constant and the number of spin components. We demonstrate, using quantum Monte Carlo simulations, that this phase has long-range spin-nematic order, and that the phase transition into it appears to be first order.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figure

Transmissible gastroenteritis virus: Identification of M protein-binding peptide ligands with antiviral and diagnostic potential

The membrane (M) protein is one of the major structural proteins of coronavirus particles. In this study, the M protein of transmissible gastroenteritis virus (TGEV) was used to biopan a 12-mer phage display random peptide library. Three phages expressing TGEV-M-binding peptides were identified and characterized in more depth. A phage-based immunosorbent assay (phage-ELISA) capable of differentiating TGEV from other coronaviruses was developed using one phage, phTGEV-M7, as antigen. When the phage-ELISA was compared to conventional antibody-based ELISA for detecting infections, phage-ELISA exhibited greater sensitivity. A chemically synthesized, TGEV-M7 peptide (pepTGEV-M7; HALTPIKYIPPG) was evaluated for antiviral activity. Plaque-reduction assays revealed that pepTGEV-M7 was able to prevent TGEV infection in vitro (p \u3c 0.01) following pretreatment of the virus with the peptide. Indirect immunofluorescence and real-time RT-PCR confirmed the inhibitory effects of the peptide. These results indicate that pepTGEV-M7 might be utilized for virus-specific diagnostics and treatment

Local indistinguishability: more nonlocality with less entanglement

We provide a first operational method for checking indistinguishability of orthogonal states by local operations and classical communication (LOCC). This method originates from the one introduced by Ghosh et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 5807 (2001) (quant-ph/0106148)), though we deal with pure states. We apply our method to show that an arbitrary complete multipartite orthogonal basis is indistinguishable by LOCC, if it contains at least one entangled state. We also show that probabilistic local distinguishing is possible for full basis if and only if all vectors are product. We employ our method to prove local indistinguishability in an example with sets of pure states of 3X3, which shows that one can have ``more nonlocality with less entanglement'', where ``more nonlocality'' is in the sense of ``increased local indistinguishability of orthogonal states''. This example also provides, to our knowledge, the only known example where d orthogonal states in dXd are locally indistinguishable.Comment: 4 pages, no figures, RevTeX4, partially supersedes quant-ph/0204116, to appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Studying off mass shell and off resonance background effects in e+e-tott H

We discuss the reaction of associated production of the top quark pair and Higgs boson at the future International Linear Collider. We assume that the Higgs boson is light and hence, due to its very small decay width, it is produced on mass shell while the top quarks are produced off shell and they decay, each into 3 fermions. This causes a necessity of studying reactions with seven particles in the final state. Concentrating on one semileptonic channel of such reaction, we illustrate the off mass shell effects and calculate the off resonance background contributions. The latter are calculated with the use of a program carlomat for automatic computation of multiparticle cross sections

Differential calculus on the quantum Heisenberg group

The differential calculus on the quantum Heisenberg group is conlinebreak structed. The duality between quantum Heisenberg group and algebra is proved.Comment: AMSTeX, Pages

Randomness amplification against no-signaling adversaries using two devices

Recently, a physically realistic protocol amplifying the randomness of Santha-Vazirani sources producing cryptographically secure random bits was proposed; however for reasons of practical relevance, the crucial question remained open whether this can be accomplished under the minimal conditions necessary for the task. Namely, is it possible to achieve randomness amplification using only two no-signaling components and in a situation where the violation of a Bell inequality only guarantees that some outcomes of the device for specific inputs exhibit randomness? Here, we solve this question and present a device-independent protocol for randomness amplification of Santha-Vazirani sources using a device consisting of two non-signaling components. We show that the protocol can amplify any such source that is not fully deterministic into a fully random source while tolerating a constant noise rate and prove the composable security of the protocol against general no-signaling adversaries. Our main innovation is the proof that even the partial randomness certified by the two-party Bell test (a single input-output pair ($\textbf{u}^*, \textbf{x}^*$) for which the conditional probability $P(\textbf{x}^* | \textbf{u}^*)$ is bounded away from $1$ for all no-signaling strategies that optimally violate the Bell inequality) can be used for amplification. We introduce the methodology of a partial tomographic procedure on the empirical statistics obtained in the Bell test that ensures that the outputs constitute a linear min-entropy source of randomness. As a technical novelty that may be of independent interest, we prove that the Santha-Vazirani source satisfies an exponential concentration property given by a recently discovered generalized Chernoff bound.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figure

Strongly aligned and oriented molecular samples at a kHz repetition rate

We demonstrate strong adiabatic laser alignment and mixed-field orientation at kHz repetition rates. We observe degrees of alignment as large as cos\Theta=0.94 at 1 kHz operation for iodobenzene. The experimental setup consist of a kHz laser system simultaneously producing pulses of 30 fs (1.3 mJ) and 450 ps (9 mJ). A cold 1 K state-selected molecular beam is produced at the same rate by appropriate operation of an Even-Lavie valve. Quantum state selection has been obtained using an electrostatic deflector. A camera and data acquisition system records and analyzes the images on a single-shot basis. The system is capable of producing, controlling (translation and rotation) and analyzing cold molecular beams at kHz repetition rates and is, therefore, ideally suited for the recording of ultrafast dynamics in so-called "molecular movies".Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, in press in Mol. Phys., accepted in February 2013, in final production (galley proofs done) since March 8, 2013, v3 only adds publication dat